Treasure Hunt
by yetti
Summary: Kerry breaks her leg and is taken to hospital, but it's not the usual place? Read and review, please! This is set after 'The Killing'. Chapter 2 now up!
1. Chapter 1 Hyperness

**Chapter 1 - Hyperness**

"Hyperness!" Lauren jumped out from behind the bush next to the door and bleated out her favourite word in the world. "Oh… and potatoes."

James jumped a mile as his sister did this, then lunged at her, subconsiousely knowing all to well that the bush she'd jumped out from was a rose bush, that had a lot of thorns.

"Ow-w! Thanks a bunch! Cow!" James fell backwards, revealing a blood covered top.

Lauren looked shocked. "How did you do all that? It was only a few thorns?"

She came out looking genuinely worried and he examined his navy CHERUB shirt and remembered what had happened in his last class; Kerry had been climbing up the rope ladder when some jerk had swung it around a bit and she'd fallen off. James saw the whole thing and beat the living daylights of the kid in one swipe before running over to her…

"_Are you ok?" He knelt by her side and stroked her face._

"_No. I can't feel my leg…" She grimaced as she looked down to find it lying at an unusual angle. "Now I can!"_

_As her groans were heard by the supervisor, he headed over and ripped James roughly from her._

"_What did you do, vomit?" Mr. Large revelled in blaming him ever since Lauren had whacked him over the head with a shovel in basic training._

"_It wasn't him, sir. It was Jason," Kerry lifted her head up and spoke as loud as she could endure, "But could we do this later? My leg kinda hurts."_

_Mr. Large shot James a glare, and then quickly rushed to the emergency phone. Within seconds a team of four men and women had rushed into the room and carried her off._

"_Get back to work, scum!" Mr. Large yelled, while James stood gawping at where Kerry had been. "And you! Clean up that blood."_

_He threw a bucket and mop at James, and grabbed Jason by the collar. Carrying him to his office, all the students could hear was Mr. Large dishing out numerous punishments._

"Oh, yeah." James took his shirt off, exposing his muscular figure to some passing red-shirts. "Kerry broke her leg… badly."

Lauren gasped. "What? Is she ok?"

"Some kid is never gonna live this down." James ignored Lauren's questions and began muttering to himself, "Jason."

* * *

Kerry opened an eye. She was in a huge empty room with bright lights overhead and some loud beeps ringing through her ears. She opened the other eye, gathering more information about the space. 

"Hello?" She asked nervously.

When no reply came she lay there for a moment, and decided she was thirsty. As she attempted to get up she remembered what had happened, but only when it was too late. She screamed in agony and rolled back over to briefly relieve herself from the pain.

"Hello?" She asked again, but still no reply came.

As she turned her head around she saw an entire wall covered in a large mirror; a sign she knew to be from interrogations, but this was different. She thought about the last time she'd been in the CHERUB hospital and it hadn't looked anything like this.

Kerry glanced over to a cupboard in the corner and caught sight of crutches with a note attatched. She couldn't make out what it said, meaning whoever left it expected her to go over and get it.

"Son of a..." she shouted, and slowly sat up, preparing herself for pain. "Right..."

She acted as quickly as possible to shorten the time she had to endure the twisting of her leg. She was shocked to realise that it hadn't been put in a cast. Any normal hospital would have slung it up within seconds of them coming through the door... It raised her suspicions even higher.

Once the pain had mostly passed, she hobbled over, clinging desperately to any nearby ledge.

She finally reached the crutches, and once she'd positioned them under her arm, she read throught the note.

_Down the corridor, pass the toilets - third door on the left. Go through and you'll see another note._

It didn't say any more, so Kerry took a moment to get used to using the crutches and headed off. It felt like a treasure hunt...

**Hey... like it? Please review if you want more. Potatoes and hyperness.**


	2. Chapter 2 Conspiracy Theory

**Chapter 2 – Conspiracy theory**

"Has anyone else heard from Kerry?" James was sitting with his friends in the bowling alley.

Every now and then the group met up and headed off to celebrate or something; this meeting was in aid of Connor and Callum's birthday. They were 'really bummed' that Kerry couldn't make it, but a party was a party.

"Yeah..." Gabrielle piped up, "But it was very strange."

"Mine too! All she said was '_Leg broken; miss you._' Normally she writes me long messages that are accurate and make sense," he pulled out a screwed up piece of paper from his pocket. "And they're usually neat!"

Gabrielle pulled out a similar piece of paper. "Mine is exactly the same! Word for word..."

Kyle butted in. "You mean you both got a message from her? Why didn't I?"

"Because," Lauren smiled and spoke with an evil voice, "This is all a conspiracy and whoever took Kerry didn't know you knew each other..."

They all laughed, until they realised it might actually be true.

"What, seriously?" Connor nudged Callum when he said this.

"She was joking!"

"Yeah, I was... but maybe it's right. What if Kerry was kidnapped or something and they're gonna kill her?" Lauren bit her lip and sat back in her chair, only it was a stool so she nearly fell off the back.

Bethany came back laughing from the arcades that were in the corner of the bowling building.

"Hey, guys, this kid came over to me and tried to hit on me, but he was – like – seven, so I totally said no, then he hit me in the stomach so his mum came over and..." she saw the faces around her. "Wow... who died?"

* * *

Zara rubbed her eyes. It had been a long day and she was just about ready to go home to her husband, son and daughter.

"Zara!" James burst into the room, shortly followed by Connor, Callum, Kyle, Gabrielle, Lauren and Bethany.

She blinked. "What is it? And why are you out so late?"

They ignored the second question, and all started blurting out an explanation at the same time.

"One at a time!" She yelled.

Everyone turned to James. He loved the way they thought of him as their leader.

"Have you had any news from Kerry?" He talked confidently, but really he was terrified of what she would answer with.

"No... Why? What happened?" She furrowed her eyebrows as she spoke.

"Really? You don't even know what happened?" the group of youngsters looked around at each other.

"No! What?" Zara sat up, now wide awake.

"She fell off the rope in the gym when climbing up, and was taken away to hospital." James' voice was now layered with the fear he had before been able to hide.

"What?! That's the type of thing that gets reported in meetings and stuff..." She was now on her feet ready to jump out the door and run anywhere to find out what was going on.

"So, you weren't told." James looked at the others.

"No."

"We need to go see Mac."

* * *

The walk to Mac's office was in silence. The group of Cherubs walked quickly, but not too fast due to the dread of what answer Mac had waiting for them. The suspense was worse than getting punished.

"Come on!" James was the only one who wanted to get there as fast as possible.

"We're coming," Lauren moaned.

She was exhausted. She had only just gotten back from a minor, yet tiring, mission, and had only agreed to go along to the party on the condition that it wouldn't last too long. That all changed when they started talking about Kerry. She had forgotten her exhaustion, but now it was catching back up with her.

"How long is this gonna take?" she called out to James and Zara, who were a few metres in front of the rest.

"As long as it takes," James shouted back angrily.

Lauren apologised once she realised how insensitive she was being. Behind her Callum and Connor were grouching about how there birthday had been ruined, so she decided to share her guilt and turned to face them off.

"You realise Kerry could be dead or dying right now?" she spat.

"Um..." they muttered a 'sorry' between them and Lauren carried on walking.

After about ten minutes of walking, they collapsed outside Mac's office and James followed Zara nervously in. No matter what the occasion, Mac's office scared him. Whether it was when he was getting a new colour shirt, or simply because he had thrown a flour balloon at Kyle, he was terrified.

"Right. What seems to be so important that you called me in past my bed-time?" Mac let out a yawn and motioned for them to sit down opposite him.

"I'm sorry, Mac, but have you heard from Kerry?" James sent Zara a thankful glance for taking the lead.

Mac replied with a blank look.

"You know, from when she fell off the rope ladder in the gym yesterday?" Zara looked desperate as Mac gave her another vacant look.

"I haven't heard anything about that... Are you sure it happened?" Once Mac had asked this, Zara nodded, and then turned to James.

"I was there," he piped up.

"Oh." Mac rubbed his chin, and ran his hand through his hair. "Ok."

He stood up and left the room.

Zara and James sat without a sound in the dark room, and as they did, James felt tears well up in his eyes. Ever since basic training, he'd loved Kerry in every way. He just never got a chance to say so.

Zara, despite the fact she couldn't see anything in the barely lit room, lent over and put an arm around him. James lent in, knowing pulling away would just make the tears fall even harder. He'd been dying for a motherly hug since his Mum died.

"Thank you, Zara." he muttered.

"Thank you, James. Without you, we'd have taken much longer to find out." She wrapped another arm around him and rested her chin on his head.

* * *

"Mrs. Parkins?" Mac ran out of the room, catching sight of the group of children sitting in his 'waiting to go in' chairs.

"What is it?" Kyle, being the oldest, called out.

"We appear to have a... situation." Lauren burst out crying and lent in to hug Connor... or Callum, she couldn't tell the difference in the little light they had.

"Do you know where my assistant is?"

Kyle nodded, looking pale, and pointed him down the hall to a door at the end of the corridor. "She went in there."

"In there? Surely not, that's a cleaning cupboard." In spite of this, he headed off to check, and opened the door wide to show Kyle she wasn't in there.

"She definitely went in there..." Kyle stood up and walked down the hall, entering the cupboard to double check.

As he did so, he screamed and fell down a hole in the floor. Mac jumped forward in time to catch his hand and drag him back out.

"Well," he said once they'd caught their breaths, "At least we know where she went!"

**What 'cha think? Amazifying or what? Please review!**


End file.
